I grew up going to this theater and have very fond memories of the time I spent there. My father was the projectionist there from the time it opened (I think) until late November of 1984. When I was allowed to go to work with my Dad I would sometimes sit down in the house and watch with the other patrons but more often I liked to stay up in the projection booth with him. I watched him splice film, make changeovers from one projector to the other and change carbon arcs, etc. My Dad had a large reel to reel music library that he selected from to play for the moviegoers when the pictures were not running. When she was old enough, my cousin worked there at the candy counter. I remember that upstairs next to the projection booth there was a huge room full of HVAC equipment and it was very loud and I had to stay out of there. I really do appreciate seeing the picture that was posted by “Life’s Too short”. I loved going to the Morton Grove. Thanks for the memories…..

My family, Kohlberg Theaters, were the ones that sold the theater to Value. We ALWAYS did big business, why do you think we enlarged it to two screens. We did open one year with King Kong. My dad had an employee dressed in a forills suit to greet the customers! Boy, them were the days:)

I am a Michael LeVan. I have lived in the city of Chicago my entire life. I am a filmmaker and a attendee of Columbia College, heading into my final year. I love all the old movie palaces of Chicago. It has been my intent for sometime to Make a documentary on the history, and the ongoings of these historic theaters in the present. The means to make this documentary are finally in my grasp. I planned on featuring 3 theaters, the Copernicus Center(formally The Gateway), The Patio(Formally The Avalon), and The Uptown. While the Documentary will focus on the entire history, These are the three that will be visual examples, and the ones i would like to film in. I have spoken with the People at The Gateway Theater, and they are estatic that i am doing this. The only problem now is The Uptown and the The Patio. These two theaters seem to have ghosts of owners , or even managers. If somebody could help me in finding someone to talk too, i would be very appriciative. Also, this documentary will require interviews, and finding old information as well. If anybody would be kind enough to do either that would be fantastic. My somewhat set date to start filming is June 10 ,2006. My goal with the entire project is to help and benifit these theaters. Help alot more people to gain interest, and all the profit that i attain, if any, will be donated to help with these theaters. I am going to submit it to Wttw(Pbs Chicago) , and also the History Channel. So if anyone would like to help in anyway, they can contact me at my email.

or by phone (773)-656-5821

Well i appriciate if you read that entire thing, and hopefully i will be hearing from you

Yeah. I saw the X-Files movie there, whatever year that was. All the theatres were packed that night. Line at the box office. It was a lot of fun. And yeah, it doesn’t greatly enhance the community to have a Shoe Carnival. I think the landlord blew it on this one. Even if retail does pay more rent the theatre drew people to the other businesses there when there are plenty of half-empty shopping malls in Chicagoland struggling to survive. Plus the theatre sounds like it was a reliable tenant. It’s a problem I see a lot in my business: there are a lot of guys out there who are too fixated on up-front money to pull back and see how the bigger picture can be more profitable.

The comment above confirms what I’d rather suspected. As I recall, the theatre always did great business. Just what the community needed—another boring shoe outlet selling footwear that falls apart after a couple of months.

OK OK OK OK….lets get this all straight here. let me 1st state who i am. My name is Brian and i ran the morton grove theatre for the last 4 years it was open. let me tell you really what happened. sit down and listen….1st of all the morton grove theatre was a family owned business and called Value Theatres. They also had 7 other theatres in the chicago land area including a 1st run theater that charged a normal $8 to get in. Out of all the other theatres, the mortong grove theatre was the #1 theatre. So, what does that mean? money was not an issue jayne2. The theatre was the 1st building to go into that complex with a handy andy. They took the handy andy and turned it into 6 retail stores. the owner of the property realized that retail payed more than we did so what they did was they renovated the whole lot. paved the ground, gave a new facelift. but left us alone. we had problem with the plumbing, the roof, and the parking lot they never re-paved. we had 7 years left on our lease. they ran us out. that place was a landmark it was a great place to be. money was no issue, we had plenty of staff and it was $1.75 a ticket $1 tuesdays. NEVER did 1st runs…nwo when you drive passed there you see a shoe carnival with 3 cars in the parking lot. we were the hottest thing in morton grove…we sold out all movies friday,saturday, and sundays no matter what condition it was outside they lined up to TJ maxx to get a ticket on a saturday night and if you ever went, you know what im talkin about…i think thats it. MGT 4 Life!

The last time I went to the Morton Grove was in early 2001. It was a Saturday night, second run movie (can’t remember which one), and there were a lot of people there, but at $1.50 per ticket it may not have been making money. And, probably the land was worth more than the cost of running the business, which is usually the case. It seemed like a family was running the theater, which made me think maybe they weren’t making enough money to hire too many people.

Towards the end, this theatre was operated by Value Theatres, which apparantly was trying to make inroads into the Chicagoland Area. Value had a few theatres going, now only the Buffalo Grove and the Harlem Corners remain.

This theatre may have also tried to do first run showings towards the end too, but I can’t confirm this. I can’t understand why this place closed (perhaps the owners received a good offer to sell?). It always drew a good crowd.

The large “awning” was removed from the building when the theater closed, and converted to a shoe store. I was an employee here from 1977-1983 (assistant manager for the last few years). During that time, it was a single-screen theater having 1236 seats.